New Steph Swainston Castle books announced

Well, this is nice timing. My reading for the journey to Yorkshire and back was steph_swainston's^[2] The Year of Our War, I've mentioned it more than a few times before, I've just now switched on to the follow up, No Present Like Time, partially because the third book, The Modern World, is due out later this month, and I've just had them returned to me after faeriecween returned them; a long loan to herself, jantshira^[1] and others. Today, first entry on my friends page is the announcement that she's signed up to write two more books set in the same background. If'n you haven't read her stuff yet, there are previews of the first chapter of each on her site. My first reread yesterday, was struck by some of the little details I'd missed before; rope-drawn trams powered by waterwheels, Jant's normally wearing jeans and a t-shirt, etc. Seriously, a fantasy novel about fighting Insects in which the main character is a drug addict immortal and the only living man who can fly. Very very good.

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[1] Lucinda created her LJ just over a year ago, her username is that of the main character/narrator, Jant Shira. That she did this after reading the books, which she got after Christy had had them from me, shows how long the loan was, n'est ce pas?

[2]ETA: tyrell's description: (who, judging from her writing, is incredibly sexy yet scary as fuck), which is something I concur with.

Animated Bayeux

Via nhw:

(YouTube link)

So very cool. Of course, there are still those who labour under the misguided belief that this was the last time England was invaded, completely untrue, England was invaded in 1688 as well; anyone from Brixham can tell you that...

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

Seriously, I'm surprised this one hasn't[ETA: it did, oops] this made it into slapfights already. Anyway...

The Science Fiction Writers Association (of America) was, until recently, a mostly dead dog. Then scalzi decided to run as a write-in candidate for their presidency,a nd suddenly everyone is taking an interest again. One of the issues that has come up in the campaign is that of giving away free e-books web promotions and similar. Now, there's a lot of debate about this, and some of the negative points are strong, and valid. But some of them, well, they're really not.

One of the reasons why the SFWA was a moribund mess? The outgoing vice-president, Howard V. Hendrix, emailed a blogger asking him to publish his opinions on e-publishing. He thinks that, and this is for real, authors who e-publish their work, especially for free (shock horror) are webscabs and converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch. Seriously. For real. First out of the gate that I've seen was the wonderfully ascerbic nihilistic_kid, who demolishes the argument wholesale. Then james_nicoll ponders if it would be possible to avoid a Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch lifestyle.

Initially, scalzi declines to comment but then declares
Yeah, I Couldn't Just Leave It Alone and writes an excellent rebuttal concentrating on Hendrix's belief that publishing is a zero-sum game and the way that an elected officer could call his constituents backstabbing scum (extra comments).

All of this prompts Nebula nominee Jo Walton to declare Monday 23rd April is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, and asks that as many people as possible, especially pro-writers, give away something online that they would normally charge for. Scalzi is in, James is promoting it and also has some food for thought about extinction events with some nice graphs about biodiversity as well.

So, next Monday, give away something for free online; post something on your journal, write a story, etc. I'm not an author, not a writer, but to keep in the spirit of the thing, would anyone want an SEO/site usability analysis from me, to be published openly here?

Oh, and try to come up with something for yourself as well, as the more the merrier I say, because being a pixel-stained technopeasant might be fun...